Nitro RPC Client

The nitro RPC client is a typescript client that can make RPC calls against a go-nitro RPC server.

Using the RPC Client

import { NitroRpcClient } from "./rpc-client";

const rpcPort = 4222;

const rpcClient = await NitroRpcClient.CreateHttpRpcClient(
  `127.0.0.1:${rpcPort}/api/v1`
);

const counterParty = `0xDEADBEEF`;

const paymentChannelInfo = await rpcClient.DirectFund(counterParty);

console.log(
  `Created channel ${paymentChannelInfo.ChannelId} with counterparty ${counterParty}`
);

await rpcClient.Close();

CLI Tool

The Nitro RPC comes with a CLI tool to trigger calls through the nitro RPC client.

npm exec -c 'nitro-rpc-client version'

The full list of API calls can be seen using the --help flag.

❯ npm exec -c 'nitro-rpc-client --help'
nitro-rpc-client <command>

Commands:
  nitro-rpc-client version                  Get the version of the Nitro RPC
                                            server
  nitro-rpc-client address                  Get the address of the Nitro RPC
                                            server
  nitro-rpc-client direct-fund              Creates a directly funded ledger
  <counterparty>                            channel
  nitro-rpc-client direct-defund            Defunds a directly funded ledger
  <channelId>                               channel
  nitro-rpc-client virtual-fund             Creates a virtually funded payment
  <counterparty> [intermediaries...]        channel
  nitro-rpc-client virtual-defund           Defunds a virtually funded payment
  <channelId>                               channel
  nitro-rpc-client get-ledger-channel       Gets information about a ledger
  <channelId>                               channel
  nitro-rpc-client get-payment-channel      Gets information about a payment
  <channelId>                               channel
  nitro-rpc-client pay <channelId>          Sends a payment on the given channel
  <amount>

Options:
      --help     Show help                                             [boolean]
      --version  Show version number                                   [boolean]
  -p, --port                                            [number] [default: 4005]

Using the create-channels script

A test script is available to easily create channels. It requires 3 running RPC servers for Alice,Bob, and Irene. The go-nitro repository contains a test script to start and run the required RPC servers

The create-channels script will do the following (using the nitro-rpc-client):

1. Create a ledger channel between Alice and Irene.
2. Create a ledger channel between Bon and Irene.
3. Create some virtual channels.
4. Make some payments.
5. Close some virtual channels.

The script can be run from the packages/nitro-rpc-client folder with npx ts-node ./scripts/client-runner.ts create-channels.

The script also accepts a few options for the amount of channels to create/close.

❯ npx ts-node ./scripts/client-runner.ts create-channels --help
client-runner create-channels

Creates some virtual channels and makes some payments

Options:
  --help             Show help                                         [boolean]
  --version          Show version number                               [boolean]
  --createledgers    Whether we attempt to create new ledger channels.
                     Set to false if you already have some ledger channels
                     created.                          [boolean] [default: true]
  --numvirtual       The number of virtual channels to create between Alice and
                     Bob.                                  [number] [default: 5]
  --numclosevirtual  The number of virtual channels to close and defund.
                                                           [number] [default: 2]
  --numpayments      The number of payments to make from Alice to Bob.Each
                     payment is made on a random virtual channel
                                                           [number] [default: 5]

The --createledgers option is helpful when you want to create some additional virtual channels using existing ledger channels. Setting it to false means the script will just use the existing ledger channels when creating new virtual channels.